App Zap

In one of the TED Talks, a 12-year old boy taught himself to develop iphone apps and encourages others to follow suit. Whatever age or background, some people want to come up with life-assisting and hopefully life-changing apps.

I’m sending a message out to the universe of app creators. I wish somebody could invent an app that could zap other people’s phones and disable the phone for a few seconds repeatedly enough to get the person to stop using the phone thinking there’s something wrong with the wifi but actually there isn’t. It’s a clever way to shut up nearby targeted phones. Somebody just wants other people to stop using the phone so much such as during meals at home or outside, or when others are trying to concentrate but you can’t because somebody’s playing a video or music loudly. Or there’s that person who keeps inviting you out but when you’re together, that person ironically is on the phone longer than in conversation with you.

It boggles the mind how some people still can’t get how rude, even insulting, it is to be fiddling with your phone while sharing a meal with someone. It’s like how some cigarette smokers can’t get how rude it is to be smoking in an enclosed public space such as a bus or elevator. Yes, there are people who do smoke in those places in China!

So this application would be life-changing because we need people interacting with us rather than with mobile devices. Sadly today, people would rather hear the news from Facebook feeds and WeChat moments than from loved ones right in front of them. It’s a rather sorry state of the world that Einstein has predicted, if viral memes are to be believed. People obsess about how many likes and comments their status gets and are sleeping far less than they should. Imagine the power of that app to create pockets of release and peace from habitual and late night phone checking.

I wonder if this worrying habit is a form of addiction, a co-dependency relationship between the cellphone over-user and the over-used device. Take the gadget away and there would be withdrawal symptoms like shaking hands and insane mood swings. Have studies been done to determine the unhealthy psychological and physiological effects of being too enamored with handheld devices? Are these devices being used to compensate for some sort of lack? Is it a fear of direct communication or an insecurity about human connection failure? Is it a totally unavoidable modern high-tech woe?

The potential solution would be the zapping app which doesn’t have to be harmful. It needs to be innocuous enough to fool people that their phones temporarily can’t be used. Innocently, you can feign, yup it’s happening to my phone too. Damn, some areas have such bad signal! The app will target only the person whose phone number you key in and zap! Instant disability.

Who would benefit from this app? Families and friends. Lovers old and new. Spouses sick of their partners hogging the cellphone more than they themselves are hugged. People tired of being ignored, taken for granted, taking a back seat to a measly gadget.

Who will invent this app? Any takers? I don’t need any royalties. Just allow me to use the app and I’d be a happy pappy.